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Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Lift

You can tell when a dressage show is coming up when there's nothing interesting to blog about.

"Oh hey guys. Did some circles today. That went pretty well."

"Flatted around for thirty minutes. Sure was hot."

"Did a few leg yields. That was okay, but boring. Went for a short trail ride afterwards."

dressaging with memphis.

It would be one thing if Bobby was being a serious sass pot, but alas he's not even pulling any bloggable stunts. Such a shame, I know.

However, the blog must go on so I'll try to make today's ride readable. Or at least short.

I rode with Sarah on Monday after giving Bobby Sunday off. As always when riding with other people, I had a really hard time concentrating on my horse, and Bobby just kind of plunked around. I managed to finish with some real work, but it was brief and probably not as great as it could have been.

To make amends, I went down to the indoor this morning (because yay mirrors, and shade, and watered down footing) and did work--real work. Our warm up was a little discombobulated as Bobby kept tricking me with his stretching. Any time he offers to stretch I let him because he sucks so very much at it, but then I get complacent and he gets lazy and turns his stretch into a strung out plodding fest.

The canter was actually pretty good though, and after that we worked lots on free walk to medium walk while catching our breaths/trying not to die of heat stroke.

blurry cell phone pick of post bath bobby to break up wall of text.

I finally picked up the sitting trot and focused on my position while keeping Bobby forward. I started doing yoga for the first time ever at the beginning of the month and it's so majikal. It's like a dressage lesson on a comfy mat...but, you know, still totally usable in your daily riding! It's all about a strong core, and a straight line between shoulder, hip, and feet. The most helpful tidbits I've picked up are tucking my pelvis so that it's aligned with my hips instead of hanging out by itself and tipping me forward, and opening my collar bone while dropping my shoulders.

We did some leg yields both directions before another long walk and picking the canter back up again.

The canter started off decent. Nothing exciting, but at least he was forward and not on his forehand. I would do a 20m circle at each end of the ring, lengthen down the long sides, and then a simple change across the diagonal. The first set was good.

The second set Bobby was crooked and picked up the counter canter. I brought him back to the trot which immediately offended him, and then asked him to canter again which offended him even more because hellooooo, I had just asked him to canter and then told him "No, trot." SO MUCH ANGST.

However, Bobby seems to go a little better when you get him wound up. You just have to be supremely careful to not cross the line where he can no longer function. He wanted to suck back and curl so I put my leg on, brought in a little extra help from my new spurs, and pushed my hands forward. He responded by tucking his booty up under his chin and bitch slapping fancy prancing in the fucking face with his front end. Ugh, he was so light and dreamy and jumpy and dreamy and fancy.

I'd originally wanted to do a few more things, but I quit right there and gave him all the pats in the world.

Also, that was not short at all. Whoops. Here's a puppy picture to make up for it:

See the blogging challenges a dressage riderr faces? That's why I don't post about every single ride. If it weren't for the racehorses, I'd be totally screwed for material. Glad you had a good ride though :)